NVIDIAs next-next-gen cards to move to GDDR5

COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2008 our friends at bit-tech have discovered that NVIDIA plan to harness GDDR5 based memory in conjunction with its D12U codenamed graphics cards, though these arn't likely to be launched before late 2009. Although the sooner to be released D10U based models are also yet to hit the market, it's been ascertained that these will stick to GDDR3 memory.

Obviously, D12U probably hasn't even left the drawing board yet, but it's clear that Nvidia is already in discussions with memory manufacturers about the supply of high-speed GDDR5 memory. We already know that ATI's next-generation graphics cards support GDDR5, and we're likely to see the new memory technology used on the RV770XT-based products.

GDDR5 is currently made on a 70nm node, but by the time Nvidia gets around to using it, it'll be manufactured on a 55nm process - that's expected to happen at some point during 2009. What's more, by the end of Q1 2009, memory manufacturers expect to have doubled the density of the technology, meaning higher capacity memory kits will be available for newer graphics cards.